Tatársánc

The native grassland near the village Pusztaföldvár can offer exciting things to see not only for those who are interested in the historical period before the Hungarian conquest of the Carpatian Basin.

According to the official site of Körös-Maros National Park the valuable native grassland was discovered by dr. István Kiss, botanist in 1939 on the slope of this very rich historical place of Nagytatársánc. The double dyke was 3050 m long and served safety purposes.

Thousands of years ago the area between the rivers Körös and Maros was covered by loess grasslands with small patches of plain boscages, groves of maples and oaks. Later, as the grasslands were converted into ploughlands, the excellent quality grassland soils disappeared, thus the original vegetation has disappeared, and nowadays it can be seen only on some smaller patches on Cuman hows and confines.

The Tatársánc native grassland is such a relict that has survived during the centuries. People living at the end of the bronze age, around the centuries 8-5 BC, built the dyke Nagytatársánc south east to the village Pusztaföldvár.

The highly protected one hectare size native grassland is covered by species characteristic to the loess grasslands. According to Wikipedia such plants are: Teucrium chamaedrys, Viola ambigua, Fragaria viridis, Asperula cynanchica, meadow-rhubarb, hare’s foot trefoil and jacobaea (Senecio jacobaea) and Transsylvanian adonis, one of the most precious plants is the Salvia nutans that lives only in this area.

The area is accessible both by car and bike, but a hiking trip would not be too exhausting either, so we highly recommend it to everybody.